The present invention relates to wireless communication services, and more particularly, to techniques for providing network application services to subscribers of a wireless communications network.
FIG. 1 shows an example of a prior art system for providing network access to one or more wireless subscribers. In order to simplify this description, the figure excludes some of the components necessary to implement the network access. However, FIG. 1 includes the major components necessary for understanding the present method and system.
Each wireless subscriber 10 communicates with a wireless network access device (WNAD) through a central antenna 12. In general, multiple antennae can be used in such systems, but for this simple example only one antenna is shown. The central antenna 12 conveys (through various other components not shown) the data packet streams from the subscribers 10 to a wireless network access device (WNAD) 14. The WNAD 14 transmits the packet data streams to a number of server groups 18, 22, 26 through associated load balancers 16, 20, 24, although the load balancers are optional and the packet data streams may go directly to the server groups. Each server group includes one or more servers, and provides application session services to the system for processing the packet data streams. After passing through the load balancers and servers, the packet data streams are relayed to a core network 28 (for example, the Internet).
The inline wireless access device 106 also communicates with an AAA server or AAA servers. In general, an AAA server handles subscriber requests for access to computer resources and, for an enterprise or the carrier, provides authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) services.
Each server group provides a different application session service. For example, the first server may provide a content charging service, which accounts for and assigns a particular charge to each of the services the subscriber uses. The second server group may provide an optimization service, which performs compression and other data optimization functions. The third service group may provide control services, such as parental controls and malicious code detection. These are just application session services, and many other service applications may be included in the serial path from the WNAD 14 to the network 28. Other services include, but are not limited to, packet manipulations (e.g., stateful inspections, header compression, content-aware charging, content filtering), security (e.g., stateful firewall, intrusion detection, intrusion prevention, virus checking), payload manipulation (e.g., application compression), and VPN services (e.g., IPSec, L2TP LAC/LNS, Mobile IP).
There are several disadvantages to using the architecture shown in FIG. 1. For example, since the service application servers are distinct components separate from the WNAD, the WNAD has limited control over those servers. Further, the serial nature of the path through the service application servers requires that each subscriber data packet stream pass through all of the service application servers, in the order they are connected, prior to being sent to the network. The inability to control the sequence of service delivery, or to exclude one or more of the services, makes it difficult for service providers to offer customized, tiered service packages to the subscriber. In some cases, the fixed sequence order of the services makes it difficult or impossible to provide certain services. For example, actions of an optimization service (e.g., compression) may make it difficult for a parental control service to evaluate the data stream for prohibited content.
The serially connected servers also introduce more points of failure and vulnerability to security breaches. Further, the latency that results from having traffic travel across the network is perceptible to subscribers as performance problems in latency-sensitive services, including annoying gaps or delays in conversations. Each unnecessary transit through an application server typically adds tens of milliseconds of unwanted propagation delay.
Since typical service application servers lack subscriber awareness (i.e., they do not have access to subscriber profiles), they do not permit mobile operators to offer tailored service bundles, and limit them to offering a “one size fits all” service.